


Ὕστερον πρότερον (The Latter One First)

by ParanoidSeat



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: (English Language), Alien Planet, Artificial Intelligence, Evil Computer, F/F, Femslash, Military, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-06
Updated: 2010-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParanoidSeat/pseuds/ParanoidSeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The locals of Epsilon Xi have a troubled future ahead of them. Or possibly behind them. Mel's getting a bit muddled with all this, actually. (Written in English)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glinda_penguin](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=glinda_penguin).



> Written for the 2008 'dw_femslash' ficathon on LJ.  
> Beta'd by 'agapi42'.

_Location: approximately 140km above Human colony Epsilon Xi  
Six months and four days before the end of Peacetime  
Local time: 20H 07M  
Just after mid-day siesta_

 

There was a series of noises coming from the starboard engine that didn't make their descent to Epsilon Xi any less unsettling than the fact that the nose of the ship appeared to be smoking as they crossed from the thermosphere into the mesosphere. The turbulence of re-entry (which was maybe just 'entry' and not 're-entry' at all, since they'd never been to this planet before) brought Glitz stumbling through from the cargo deck, swearing loudly about a stubbed toe and grumbling about the "blasted cooling systems" as he dropped into the co-pilot's seat.

"We nearly there?" he asked, rather unnecessarily. He fished a bag of some sort of distinctly meaty-smelling snack food out of his pocket and offered it to the pilot.

Mel took her eyes off the screen for a moment to give him a Look, then returned to scanning the visible landmasses through the cloud layers below.

"How's the cargo?" she asked, once she'd identified their target continent and made sure their course was correct. "None of it on fire, or anything?"

"Not at the moment," Glitz replied, putting his feet up on the glove compartment once the turbulence had subsided. "Although we might need to install an extinguisher in the engine room if the cooling vents keep blocking themselves up."

"We're into the lower atmosphere now, so it should start cooling down," Mel assured him with a grin. They dropped through the last thin layer of clouds, and she couldn't help a small sigh at the sight of the clear blue oceans, deep green forests, and wide grassy plains containing cities that glistened in the sunlight like clusters of iridescent beetles.

The eleventh planet orbiting the fifth brightest star in the constellation of Piraeus, Epsilon Xi had the most idyllic outward appearance of all of Earth's colony planets. Large marine animals broke the surface of the waves and fanned their fronds in the air before returning below. Beaches stretched around the major continents, white and gleaming in the midday sun. Lush vegetation fringed the shores and stretched back to dense rainforest, thick with all manner of wild animals. It was easy to see why the Earth colonists had chosen this planet as a settling place several centuries ago.

A loud beeping from the console brought Mel's attention back to the cockpit, and she decided to ignore the incredible view in favour of not nose-diving into that beautiful blue ocean. Glitz was similarly pushing buttons, controlling the various items of landing gear to slow their descent to the city of Camarina. The flight computer on board the _Centennial Skylark_ (Mel had flatly disallowed Glitz's plan to name it the _Nosferatu III_, after what had happened to the first two) had started chatting with the land-based computer in the docking port's control station the moment they came into orbit, exchanging data about trajectories and flight paths, so the landing procedure was fairly straightforward. Mel still breathed a sigh of relief after every touchdown, nevertheless.

Once they were out of the ship and standing in the open air of the docking port, the sun warmed their skin quite pleasantly but caused them both to shield their eyes from the glare. Their contact, a burly middle-aged man by the name of Kris, hurried across from the sheltered waiting area to greet them, tailed by a string of wheeled pallets to transport their cargo.

As they perched on the back seats of the small open-topped vehicle towing the pallets, Glitz and Kris chattered away in trader-speak about the cargo and its various merits, while Mel watched the scenery pass. The architecture was rather sleek and shiny, revealing the wealth behind the colony, but more rustic elements remained from the earlier days of colony building, such as market squares full of produce and clothing.

There was a general sense in the area of a city only just awakening; the market traders were rolling tarpaulins back from their stall fronts, and there were more than a few children making their way to school who seemed as though they had just been rushed through the morning routine when they would have preferred to stay in bed.

Yet, it was the middle of the day. According to the sun, at least; shining high in the sky, maybe a couple of hours past noon.

"What time is it?" Mel asked, interrupting Glitz's much-told yarn about the time he had 'almost been killed on a philanthropic mission, delivering very important classified documents'.

Kris consulted a timepiece in his pocket. "Just after half past the twentieth hour."

Mel thought about that for a moment. "So, how long is the day, here?"

"Thirty-three hours. We're just past siesta, right now. Everyone's going back to work, or school."

"I see..."

"I could do with a little siesta myself," Glitz remarked, yawning widely.

"No napping on the job for you," Mel told him, sharply but fondly. "You remember what happened last time."

"Oh, yeah." Glitz had the decency to look slightly abashed.

When they reached the site, Kris barked short words of instruction to several workers, who rushed around lifting boxes from the pallets and carting them towards the half-finished building nearby.

"You'll get your fee now that the supplies are delivered safely," Kris said, turning to Glitz and pulling a money pouch from his pocket. Mel cleared her throat conspicuously.

"Ah, yes, you see," Glitz began awkwardly, "Miss Bush here takes responsibility for handling the finances..."

"If it didn't burn a hole in your pocket faster than hot coals, I wouldn't have to," she replied, grinning slightly. Kris counted out their payment into Mel's hand, and she then tucked it away in her own money pouch.

"We're very grateful for your services," said Kris. "If you have time, would you like to see more of the city?"

Glitz was eyeing a nearby drinking establishment as though it contained the Holy Grail, so Mel just rolled her eyes and informed Kris that they'd take him up on that offer. He turned and yelled a name across the construction site, and to Mel's surprise, the "hang on a second!" that echoed back was in a British accent. The colonists seemed to have a strong Greco-Roman influence to their society, so the background hubbub was vaguely Mediterranean, but this voice was recognisably English. Near London, even. And rather familiar.

Glitz had turned at the sound of the voice too. "Was that...?"

The half-spoken question was answered mere moments later, as their appointed tour guide extricated herself from the busier end of the site.

"What did you say, boss?" The young woman straightened her hardhat as she approached them, and when the brim finally shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun, she stopped dead. "Doughnut, is that you?!"

Mel laughed in surprise. "Ace! What are you doing here?"

Ace covered the final few yards to the safe zone in an instant, pulling off her hard hat and swinging Mel round in an enthusiastic hug.

"Didn't think I'd see you again," she said with a grin. "Did you have to bring old bilgebag, though?"

"Oi!"

The girls laughed as Glitz took offence, and Ace let Mel go rather reluctantly.

"Oh, it's been ages! I've --"

A sudden high pitched sound stung Mel's ears, hurting her head and making her dizzy. The sunlight became too bright to see anything at all, and she screwed her eyes tightly shut.

"Oh, what on earth was that?" she groaned, when the light and noise finally faded away. "Felt like microphone feedback in my head..."

Her ears still ringing, Mel blinked at the dark blotches in her vision and cast around in the gloom to find her bearings.

"Ace?" she called, hesitantly. "Glitz?"

Looking up, she saw a tall grey building looming over her. Further up still, she could see that it was suddenly night-time. Only the sound of dead leaves whispered around her, and a thick fog was creeping in through the city. It felt deserted, almost dead.

Mel shivered as the chill of the night settled around her bones. She tried her luck once more.

"Hello?" she shouted, her voice echoing around the streets.

A hand on her shoulder made her yelp and spin round, her heart thudding as she let out a shaky laugh of relief when she saw that it was Ace, her face alert and serious.

"What happened?" she asked, recovering a smidgen of composure.

Ace put her fingers to Mel's lips, hushing her, and whispered, "Not here."

 

-

 

_Location: Human colony Epsilon Xi, somewhere beneath Camarina.  
Thirty-two days after the End of Hostilities.  
Local time: 29H 48M_

 

"Ace, what on earth is going on?" Mel demanded to know, cold and confused as she watched Ace shove the heavy door shut behind them.

"It's very complicated," Ace replied, regarding Mel rather oddly. "Especially with what's happened to you."

"What do you mean? What's happened to me?"

Ace opened her mouth to explain, hesitated, then shook her head and led Mel further along the tunnel by the hand.

"Let's get you some warm clothes first."

A short time later, clad in thick jumpers, Ace and Mel sat cross-legged on a rug, warming their hands next to a small heating device. Several such devices were dotted around the room, with small groups of people huddled round them for warmth. Mel noted several children, but fewer adults. Conversation murmured just above the hum of the heaters, only just masking a few quiet sobs. The small glowing lights embedded in the walls made no sound, and brought only dim light to the space.

"So, it's like this," Ace began, her eyes focused elsewhere. "There's this computer, DELPHI. Artificial intelligence, tells the future. It was here when the planet was colonised."

Mel frowned. "So the colonists weren't the first sentient population?"

"Nah. Some time-sensitive race got wiped out centuries ago, left behind a bunch of technology. The human scientists pounced on it the second they found it, yeah? Started taking it apart, seeing how it worked. They couldn't take DELPHI apart, though. She wouldn't let them."

"She?" Mel repeated with surprise.

"A.I., remember? The computer's got a personality. Bit of a mean streak, too. Turned out she didn't want to spend all day predicting the future of the colonists, so she started telling them misleading truths. Ended up starting a war with a passing fleet of alien ships."

"Oh god..."

"She didn't want any colonists at all. Tried to wipe them out."

Mel shivered, even though she was warming up quite nicely.

"This is why I really dislike intelligent computers," she remarked, after a few moments of silence. "Far more trouble than they're worth."

She stared at her feet for a second, then looked back up at Ace, with the intention of asking another question. The look in her eyes, however, was unfamiliar; a deep sort of sadness mixed with something else. Mel found her train of thought derailed, before the expression on Ace's face disappeared behind invisible shutters. She recalled her question with some difficulty, although it was obvious once she'd grasped it again.

"How did I end up here?" she asked. "We were on the construction site, it was sunny... What happened?"

"DELPHI," Ace said simply. "She began experimenting with Time before the war even started. Tried to change the future." Ace smiled wryly. "She should've known that it was her own interference that would allow some of us to survive. Luckily, she's not infallible."

"What did she do?"

"She knew that the person who had the most influence on the survival of the colonists had a strong artron energy signature. So she moved that person through time, to a point after the war, so she couldn't interfere."

"You mean, me?" Mel gaped. "Artron energy is to do with the TARDIS, isn't it? Or the time vortex?"

"Exactly."

"But we'd both have an energy signature."

"Yeah. I don't know which of us was originally supposed to be the most influential, but it ended up being you."

"Me? But I'm here, after the war. How can I have any influence on what happened?"

Ace grinned unexpectedly. "'Cause there's a way to send you back."

 

-

 

The plan wasn't feasible until the next day; something to do with low radiation levels at night not providing them enough cover to mask their life signs from DELPHI's sensors. There had apparently been some sabotage to said sensors during the war, which allowed them this opportunity to hide in plain sight during daylight hours.

Being unexpectedly ripped through time does tend to leave a traveller quite tired, so after a quick discussion with Ace and a couple of the rather bright and imaginative children who had edged their way into the conversation, Mel told Ace that she needed some sleep.

Ace said goodnight to the kids, advising them to get to their own beds as well, and took the heater with her when she led Mel to the sleeping area. The small space, just a large-ish cupboard with a single-berth bed, really, was one of several along a stone corridor.

"What was this place, before the war?" Mel asked, peering curiously into the gloomy shadows past Ace's door.

"Some kind of bunker. It's been here longer than the colonists have," Ace replied, ushering her from the chilly corridor into the equally chilly bedroom. The portable heater quickly brought the temperature up to something resembling warm, for which Mel was very glad.

Ace sat on her bed, stared at her feet, and sighed.

"What's wrong?" Mel sat next to her, covering Ace's cold hand with one of her own.

"Oh, nothing," she replied, almost breezily. "It'll be a bit of a squeeze, since we've only got the little bed, but we'll keep each other warm, at least." She smiled, but it was slightly hollow. Sad, like before.

"Ace?"

The young woman looked up, the edges of her face picked out in soft yellow by the glow of the heater. She seemed about to say something, but then decided against it. Whatever it had been vanished behind the shutters again, and she got up to pull the covers back from the bed.

Mel stood, so Ace could move the layers of blankets past where she had been sitting. She watched in silence as Ace unlaced her boots and pulled the hair-tie from her ponytail, then got into the bed and shuffled over to the wall, leaving space for Mel to lie down. Which she did, after removing her own shoes and hair slide.

Ace pulled at the covers, and Mel tugged them the rest of the way over the two of them, and they lay together in the semi-dark, listening to the hum of the heater.

Eventually, Mel turned over onto her side, to a more comfortable position, and she felt Ace do the same. They lay close, but there was a palpable tension in her body which made Mel slightly uncomfortable. Ace was almost too still against her back, and it felt strange.

She sighed, and awkwardly rolled over to face her.

"What's wrong?"

Ace reached up a hand to clasp around Mel's, and held it in the cramped space between them.

"It's nothing," she assured her. "Just ... memories, that's all."

"Memories of?"

"Something amazing." Mel couldn't tell very well in the low light, but she had the feeling that Ace's eyes weren't shuttered at all anymore. "Something I don't know if I want a second time, if I can't ever have it again."

Mel gazed at her for a time. She was so uncertain whether or not she was interpreting Ace's words correctly, that she was caught completely by surprise when the small distance between them closed, and their cold noses bumped and brushed together in the dark.

After a long moment of not breathing, Mel let out a soft noise, a nervous giggle, as she remembered the balance between breathing through the nose and kissing with the mouth.

Ace chuckled back at her, kissing her a little more deeply and tangling fingers in her hair. She broke the kiss for a few moments, and lay nose-to-nose with Mel, just breathing.

"Second time?" she asked, tilting her head and grinning excitedly.

"There was a first?" Mel was occupying a heady space somewhere between bemusement and desire.

Ace laughed. "Oh, just you wait!" she breathed, anticipation in every syllable. Mel grinned back at her, allowing herself to be pulled close again, and Ace's hands found some very interesting ways to warm themselves up.

-

It was strange to wake up in the same clothes you'd been wearing the day before. The frequently malfunctioning cooling vents on the _Centennial Skylark_ meant that it was usually quite warm on board, so Mel often argued with Glitz on the merits of wearing a bathrobe on his way to the shower in the morning if he was going to sleep starkers.

Waking up fully dressed was even stranger when you were sharing a very small bed with someone. Ace's hair was in her face, the arm under Ace's middle was asleep, and the foot that wasn't quite covered by the blanket was freezing. She shifted a bit, trying to alleviate the discomfort without waking Ace, but the two turned out to be incompatible. Ace tried to roll over, found she couldn't, and made a sleepy noise of protest.

"Just me," said Mel. "Can I have my arm back?" she added with a smile.

Ace sat up a bit, enough that Mel could pull her arm out from underneath her, and then she flopped back to the mattress with a groan. Mel rubbed at her forearm until it stopped feeling quite so boneless and started tingling back to life, and then she lay back down, her cold foot now warming up under the blanket. She curled up to Ace's back again, her good arm over her waist, and Ace snuggled backwards into her. One of her hands found Mel's and sleepily played with her fingers.

"We should get up," she said quietly, after a while. "But it's nice and warm here."

Mel shifted around until she could roll over, and they lay nose-to-nose. "Shouldn't we get some breakfast?"

"I suppose." Ace pressed a kiss to her lips, then gave her a nudge to get her moving. Mel grudgingly slid out of the bed, shivering a little within moments. Ace followed her, giving the heater a tweak to warm the room up a little. They donned boots and tied back hair, and shared a few minutes of energetic snogging on the bed to try to warm themselves up a little more (though both giggled over the fact that it was a fairly poor excuse).

Breakfast was almost-tasteless ration bars, consumed in the dim light of the main room, huddled around the heating devices again. Ace and Mel discussed the plan in more detail as they ate, including the technicalities of actually travelling in time. Apparently this involved disabling DELPHI's control just long enough to give them access to the necessary hardware to send Mel back.

"But how do we disable her?" Mel asked, sharing her ration bar with a particularly wide-eyed, sad-looking child.

Ace gave the kid a playful cuff on the head. "Oi, you, stop begging. You've got your own breakfast." The sadly hopeful expression dissolved into giggles, and Mel laughed as the 'starving urchin' act fell apart. "You're a soft touch, Doughnut," Ace teased, giving Mel a nudge with her foot as the kid ran off back to the other children. "What were you saying about DELPHI?"

"How are we disabling her?"

"With a modified version of the computer virus that we used during the war," Ace replied. She turned and called across the room. "Hey, Galen!" A young, skinny, bearded man looked up from his breakfast, then jumped up, fumbling in his pockets. He hurried over, and held out a couple of small objects.

"I managed to modify it enough that it'll work again," he said with a smile. "She shouldn't be able to counteract it for several minutes, at least." Ace took the items with a grin of thanks. "You just find a port, plug it in, the virus'll invade, and she'll lose control of her tech. Blue one's modified, red one's original."

Ace passed the objects to Mel so she could take a look; they were not unlike USB sticks she'd seen in the early 21st century. Each was wrapped around with coloured tape, one red and one blue.

"I had to modify the virus from the original because DELPHI was able to recover from it and was then immune. You have to take the original virus back to war-time so we can use it then."

Mel looked up at Ace, a slight smile forming on her lips. "It's one of those time loops, isn't it? I thought I'd seen the last of them."

Ace chuckled. "Kind of, yeah. Thanks, Galen, that's a huge help."

He smiled, and added, "Radiation levels are high today, so you should be hidden until you're inside the building."

"Brilliant."

 

-

 

"You know what you're doing?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I suppose if anything went wrong, we'd be in a different future right now, wouldn't we?"

"Perhaps. The Doctor was always pretty vague when he explained paradoxes, so I don't know."

"Yeah, they used to make my head hurt, too."

Neither girl was smiling. The building that housed DELPHI loomed over them, windows glinting in the cold winter sunlight.

"So she's in there?"

"Yep."

"Shall we go in, then?"

"Not yet." The sad, distant look had returned, and Mel pulled Ace into a hug. Ace hugged back tightly, squeezing the breath out of her for a few moments. Then she kissed her, arms around her neck and eyes tightly shut.

"I'll see you again," Mel assured her. "I will."

Ace nodded, and cracked a smile. "You'd better!" She drew in a deep breath, then let it out with a determined expression. "Right, time to take out the evil computer."

Mel grinned, and followed her inside.

 

-

 

The A.I.'s harsh tones rang out the minute they stepped into the main computer room. To Mel's ears, the sound was somewhat akin to the tang of metal on the tongue.

"You again!"

"Me again?" she echoed in surprise.

"She met you last year," Ace pointed out. "Back when we turned her into an obsolete piece of junk." She directed this to the computer, whose main screen now featured an irate digitised face.

"Impudent child!" DELPHI snapped. "You may have succeeded once -"

"But I won't succeed again?" Ace countered. She grinned in amusement. "Sounds like someone's got their facts wrong. That was always your problem, DELPHI – you can _see_ future events, but you can't always _understand_ them."

The digital face fizzed and flickered with rage. "Your time on this planet is almost at an end!" she declared.

"Is it? Oh good," Ace replied. "I was getting tired of this place anyway. Far too oppressive, and the facilities are rubbish."

DELPHI's face flickered again, but far more uncontrolled than before. Not rage, but confusion; malfunction.

"How have you done this?" she shouted, voice jittering and laced with static.

"D'you think she's noticed it yet?" Mel poked her head round the corner of the bank of terminals, after making sure the blue data stick was firmly plugged in and interfacing with the system. The screen displaying DELPHI's face went dark.

Ace grinned. "Nice one!" Mel grinned back. "Right, now, watch how I do this," said Ace, moving to one of the consoles and tapping keys.

Ace programmed the date and time into the computer as Mel stood at her shoulder, memorising the controls and sequences. She stabbed triumphantly at a final button, and the console's hum started rising in pitch. As it escalated, a loading bar on the readout screen slowly ticked upwards.

"When it's loaded, you just need to put your hand on this." Ace pointed out a small brass dome in the centre of the console.

"Right. And I'll turn up in the same place, back then?"

"Easier than arriving outside and then trying to get into the building. It's under quite heavy guard at the time you're going to, to protect DELPHI from our 'enemies' - we still trusted her then. Just tell me everything I've told you - I've got enough authority that if I believe you, they'll listen to you."

The loading bar reached full, and the whine of the computers levelled out at a very high pitch. Lights around DELPHI's screen were flicking on and off, shuddering back to life.

"Better go quick, before she wakes up."

Mel nodded. She eyed the brass dome with trepidation, wondering if it would be as disorienting as the last time.

"Mel!" She turned to Ace, who quickly cupped her face in her hands and kissed her hard. "Go!" She let go, stepped away, and Mel brought her hand down on the dome decisively.

It was exactly as disorienting as the last time. Her head rang with feedback-noise, and the bright light seemed to be inside her eyes, blinding her.

When it faded, she stumbled a little on her feet. A rattle of clicks echoed around her, and she slowly took her hand from the brass dome.

"Don't move!" a voice barked.

She opened her eyes and peered through her light-blinded vision to see that she was currently in the sights of several mean-looking weapons.

"Put your hands up where we can see them." Mel raised her hands to shoulder level. The man addressing her turned to one of his subordinates. "DELPHI was right - they can make themselves look like us. Not very good, though - I've never seen hair that colour before, have you?"

He turned back to Mel, who was trying not to let her legs give out. The second time-jump in as many days had really taken it out of her.

"You will be taken into custody as a spy against our colony. Men!" A couple of soldiers hurried towards her.

"Terrific," Mel sighed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greek military ranks are used, without much knowledge beyond what Wikipedia can give me, so I'm sorry if I've completely mis-used them :o)  
> 'Taxiarkhos' is the equivalent of a Brigadier, 'Lokhage' means Captain (and 'Kyrie Lokhage' is how a subordinate addresses his/her captain), 'Ypolokhage' means Lieutenant, and 'Anthypolokhage' means Second Lieutenant. Any other non-English words are probably names :o)

_Location: Temporary holding cells, Camarina, Human colony Epsilon Xi  
Four months after the Declaration of War  
Local time: 13H 55M_

 

Mel rapped sharply on the door to her cell, and tried once more to call through it.

"Look, will you listen to me? I'm not a spy! Get Ace, she knows me, she can vouch for me!"

Silence.

Mel sighed heavily and slumped against the wall. She was just repeating herself at this stage. How exactly was she supposed to tell Ace about DELPHI if they kept her locked up? How was she even supposed to get back to Glitz? Unless she could get out of the cell, things looked pretty hopeless.

With a clunk, the door unlocked. Mel looked up immediately, and grinned when she saw Ace standing in the doorway. It faded, however, when Ace's expression remained suspicious and analytical.

"You're not a shape-changing alien, are you?" she asked bluntly.

Mel made a little noise of surprise, and shook her head.

"Well then, let's get you back to Glitz and the _Nosferatu III_," Ace said with a quick smile. Mel looked askance at her, then laughed as she realised the game.

"It might meet with a horrible fate if it was called that," she said. "Hence why I called it the _Centennial Skylark_."

Ace grinned widely. "Thought so." She nodded to the sentry outside the door. "She's human, stand down the alert. I'll take it from here." She gestured for Mel to follow her. "Better find you somewhere comfier to sit and tell me what the hell is going on," she said, throwing a smile over her shoulder.

A few minutes and several corridors later, Ace set down two cups of some kind of hot honey drink on the side table, and sat back in one of the comfier chairs in the empty officers' mess.

"So. What happened to you last year? You wouldn't say."

"Last year?" Mel repeated in surprise.

"Yeah, it was a good nine or ten months ago. Well, sort of - twenty-day months and thirty-three hour days take some getting used to. This is you in the few seconds you disappeared for, isn't it?"

"I was only gone for a few seconds? I've been in the future for hours." Mel sipped at her drink, and found it wonderfully sweet and warming. Probably loaded with calories.

"You've only been here for half an hour," Ace pointed out, frowning in confusion.

"No, I mean after the war."

Ace sat up straight, eyes wide, then sat back slowly, folding her arms as if in self-restraint. "Don't tell anyone else that," she warned. "My superiors won't let you leave until you tell them everything you know." She gave Mel a serious look. "What _can_ you tell me?"

"There are a few things you told me to tell you." Ace raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly, but said nothing and gestured for her to continue. "DELPHI is evil."

"Evil?"

Mel nodded. "She's lying to you. She told you the alien ships would attack Camarina, so you attacked them first."

"It wasn't my idea," Ace said defensively. "I argued with Alexandros for hours to just talk to them, but he's very stubborn and xenophobic."

"If you hadn't fired on them, they would have just passed you by."

Ace sat thinking for a long moment, a look of dismay on her face. "She's trying to get us killed."

Mel nodded. "And she nearly succeeds. You manage to get underground with about a hundred survivors."

"A _hundred_ ?!" Ace repeated in shock. "There are over fifty thousand people on this planet!"

"Earth sent rescue ships," Mel hastened to add, and Ace's relief was palpable. "But some people were trapped, and your enemies destroyed one of the rescue ships before it could get you out of there."

"So I end up looking after the survivors left behind?"

"I think you're pretty much in charge, yeah. There are bunkers underground that are safe from DELPHI's scanners. And daylight is safe too."

"What do you mean?"

"Future You said something about sabotaging her systems so that radiation from the sun would mask lifesigns. And I suppose the bunkers are lead-lined or something."

"Hmm. We've yet to do that." Ace's short fingernails tapped a rhythm on her cup as she thought. "Anything else?"

Mel nodded, taking the red data stick from her pocket and handing it to Ace. "This will disable her long enough for us to use the console that controls the time-jumping. Galen will modify it so it works a second time, in the future, to get me here."

"Who's Galen?"

Mel blinked in surprise. "I assumed you'd know him. He's a computer programmer, I suppose. Possibly a scientist of some kind with a talent for programming, I'm not sure. I think he's in his late twenties, tall and thin, with a beard."

Ace nodded, filing the information away in her memory. "I'll look him up." She finished off her honey drink and gazed at Mel for a few moments, looking thoughtful. "You time-jumped, right?" she asked eventually. "How did you manage that?"

"Oh, that was DELPHI," Mel told her, realising suddenly that she'd never clarified this. "She was trying to move you, I think. Something about artron energy signatures. I think you - Future You - said that she knew someone with a strong artron energy signature would have a big influence on the outcome of the war. But I don't think she knew exactly who she was moving through time, or how exactly I'd be able to influence things." She chuckled slightly. "I don't think she realised that her meddling was actually what gave me the opportunity to help things along."

Ace smiled at that. "She's not as clever as she'd like us to think, then."

"She can see the future, but she can't always understand it," said Mel, repeating Ace's words back to her before she'd even said them. She thought about that for a moment, then shook her head with a laugh. "Nothing," she said in response to Ace's quizzical expression. "Just giving myself a headache trying to understand it all."

"It gets a bit nuts sometimes, yeah," Ace said, grinning. "I remember."

A few soldiers had started to wander into the officers' mess and make themselves comfortable. Ace nodded and smiled greetings to a couple of them, then stood up.

"Time for siesta. We should go somewhere else."

Mel stood and followed her. After a corridor or two, she asked, "If it's siesta, why are they in there and not sleeping?"

"Some people don't need as much of a rest as the others do. It's a long workday, but these colonists have been here for a few hundred years - they've adjusted to it."

"Oh. How long have you been here?"

"About two years," Ace replied, pausing to open a door. "Give or take a couple of months. It's a bit hard to keep track of, because I keep wanting to think of it in Earth time." She waved Mel inside the room. "This is mine."

Ace's room was actually a small suite in a housing complex, which mostly housed those who signed up for the military force, Ace explained.

"It's bigger than the one you had in the bunker. Will have. Whatever."

Ace chuckled, and pulled off the short military-style jacket she wore over her shirt, draping it over the back of a chair. Facing away from Mel, she stretched her arms upwards, the movement pulling the hem of her fitted shirt out of the waist of her trousers.

Mel watched her with a smile, and was suddenly inspired to take the initiative. She moved up behind her as the stretches subsided, and slid her arms around Ace's waist, tucking her chin over her shoulder. Ace tensed with surprise for a few moments, then relaxed as her arms came down to rest on Mel's. She smiled as Mel laid a soft kiss on the nape of her neck.

"This uniform's quite sexy, you know," Mel murmured in her ear.

Ace twisted in her arms to face her.

"I _knew_ there was something about the way you said goodbye," she said with a smirk.

"Goodbye?" Mel frowned.

"Last year. Before you left, with Glitz."

"Oh." Remembering that she only had very limited time with Ace, Mel's mood sank downwards.

Ace leaned in and kissed her, eyes open and intent. "I know. We don't have much time. So let's make it count, yeah?"

Mel nodded, and the next kiss was long and intense. At some point they moved to the bed, although she wasn't sure exactly when. She was aware only of hands and lips and tongue and teeth; was focused on soft curves and warm skin and tangled hair; was lost in lust and heat and urgency.

-

"When you arrived in the future," Ace began, not looking up from tying her bootlaces, "how long had it been since the war ended?"

Mel was sitting on the bed, feeling warm and content, yet melancholy at the same time.

"Thirty-two days, you told me." Anticipating the next question, she added, "29:45, next to the building DELPHI is in."

Ace nodded. "Right." She sat back in the chair and sighed. "It's not exactly peace, is it? They've been on about peace for ages now, the colony leaders; win the war, achieve peace... but all we're going to end up with is refugees."

Mel didn't really know what to say to that.

Ace stood up with another sigh and pulled her jacket on. Mel got up from the bed, moved across the room, and slid her arms around Ace's middle, under the jacket. Ace returned the embrace fiercely.

-

"You've got to listen to me, sir - DELPHI is lying to us! The war would never have started if she hadn't told us about it!"

"Look, McShane, I know you have objections to this war, you brought them up when DELPHI first warned us of the danger, but I could not just sit there and let them take the first shot! I don't see why you're bringing this up again now."

"That's not what I'm saying, Alexandros," Ace sighed. "She's been bending the truth. She sees the future, so she tells us what she wants us to know - things that will make us destroy ourselves. She's trying to wipe us out!"

"You're beginning to sound paranoid."

"When artificially intelligent computers are involved, healthy paranoia can be a life-saver."

Taxiarkhos Alexandros sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Okay, Ace. Explain to me, very clearly, why you think DELPHI is lying to us."

Mel stood to the side of the meeting room, watching the exchange. Ace glanced over to her, and her expression seemed slightly worried.

"First, I need your word that certain things will be kept confidential. And that Mel is not to be interrogated under _any_ circumstances."

"Ace, you're not going to tell him everything, are you?"

Ace gave her a comforting smile. "It's okay, Doughnut."

Alexandros narrowed his eyes at Ace, then looked over to Mel with suspicious curiosity. "As long as it doesn't threaten the safety of the colony, you have my word."

Ace nodded, and took a deep breath before continuing. "DELPHI has been experimenting with time travel. Mel was visiting Camarina about a year ago, and DELPHI moved her through time."

"To now?"

"To a point after the war."

Alexandros gaped at Mel, but Ace continued before he could start asking more questions.

"She knows what happens to us. I haven't let her tell me more than we need to know, and you're not to question her about it. I've got a lot of experience with time travel, you know that, so I'm pulling rank." Ace folded her arms defiantly, daring him to challenge her authority. He merely nodded, and motioned for her to continue. "So, Mel's been to the colony after the war, and she's brought back knowledge which will help us end it. We need to contact the Earth authorities and see what help they can give us. Someone has to talk to the ships up there and try to call a ceasefire. It probably won't help much, but it might slow things down." Ace gave him a pointed look. "Do you believe me?"

"I think I have to. And your friend -?"

"Will be going back to where she belongs in the timeline," Ace told him, in no uncertain terms. "She has to."

"You're the expert." He waved them both towards the door. "Do what you have to. You can brief the rest of them on the situation afterwards."

Ace took Mel's hand with a grim smile, and they made their way to DELPHI's control room. The soldiers on duty stood to attention and saluted to Ace as she entered, and then saluted again as Alexandros followed them in. Amidst the uniforms, in her comfy, practical, slightly worn traders' jacket, Mel felt like the proverbial sore thumb.

"Greetings, Taxiarkhos," said DELPHI, her voice warm and acceptably human - a far cry from the acrid tones Mel had heard in the post-war future.

"DELPHI," Alexandros nodded. "I'm in need of an update on the situation. Would you oblige?" He nodded discreetly to Ace, who turned to one of the soldiers.

"Ypolokhage Vlahos, a word." She beckoned him to the side, and had a muttered coversation with him, during which she slipped something small into his hand. "That's all."

"Are you sure, Kyrie Lokhage?"

"Trust me, Vlahos." She smiled, and he nodded and saluted once more, then disappeared behind one of the consoles.

DELPHI broke off from her predictions, watching the young ypolokhage approach her systems. "What exactly do you think you're doing, Taxiarkhos?" DELPHI asked, her digital face flickering gently with dangerous apprehension.

"Just what I have to, to keep my people safe."

With a more violent flicker, a muted DELPHI mouthed something angrily, then disappeared from the screen altogether.

The remaining soldiers started, turning in confusion to Alexandros and Ace, hands hovering near their weapons uncertainly.

"At ease, men," Alexandros commanded. "Lokhage McShane, get on with it."

Ace turned to Mel. "Over to you." Mel smiled shakily, and moved to the console that Ace would use in the future to send her here.

"Right, you need to remember how I do this, because you have to show me later," she said.

Ace rolled her eyes. "Of course I do," she said with a smile, and nodded to the console. "On you go."

Mel tapped in the sequences, programming in the date she recalled from the cargo slips before all this began, and estimating the time of her disappearance from the time Kris had given her shortly before they arrived at the construction site. She then took her best shot at programming the location, since Ace hadn't shown her that. She just hoped, from the fact that Ace remembered her reappearing in the same place, that she would get it right.

While she did this, Alexandros gave the soldiers a brief overview of the situation.

"Information has come to light. DELPHI is no longer to be trusted, and is to be considered a threat. It is not safe to attempt to destroy her systems. Is this understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Ypolokhage Makris - take this info to the Strategos. Ypolokhage Vlahos, Anthypolokhage Leandros - make sure the area is totally secure. No-one else should be allowed into this room. Anthypolokhage Karra - remain here to guard DELPHI."

"Sir!"

The Taxiarkhos watched his soldiers carry out their orders for a few moments, then turned to see how his lokhagos was getting on.

Mel was just inputting the final commands, and making sure Ace knew what she'd done, so she could remember it for the future.

"Yeah, I think I've got it."

"Good. Right." They both watched the loading bar tick towards completion, the console humming in a higher and yet higher pitch.

"Is everything set?" Alexandros asked.

"It'll be ready in a minute or so," Mel told him. She looked at Ace, wishing she could have a moment alone to say goodbye. Ace noticed her gaze, and reached out to clasp her fingers tightly. She gave Mel's hand a little tug to pull her closer, but Mel resisted.

"What?"

Mel nodded a significant glance towards Alexandros, who caught the look. He raised an eyebrow and smirked slightly, then turned and wandered over to Anthypolokhage Karra, facing away from them.

Ace laughed at the bemused expression on Mel's face, and gave her a quick kiss. "We're two million years after our time," she said with a grin. "_Don't Ask Don't Tell_ went out a _very_ long time ago."

Mel nodded in comprehension, then laughed at her own assumptions. She pulled Ace close to her and kissed her deeply, fighting back the tears that stung her eyes. She was still kissing her when the console hum levelled out, and the loading bar sat at 'full'. Letting her go, Mel noticed a few small lights flickering back on around DELPHI's main screen.

"I have to go."

"I know." Ace kissed her once more, lightly, and nodded towards the console.

"Good luck." Mel squeezed her hand once more, then let go, stepped away from her, and placed her hand on the brass dome.

Again, the bright lights and high pitched feedback noise blinded her and rattled her head, but she stuck it out, knowing she'd be back to the start at any moment.

"What on Salostophus was that?!"

Opening her eyes a crack, and finding the bright sun only slightly more tolerable than the blinding light of the time jump, Mel saw Glitz looking bemused and astonished.

"Mel, what happened? Are you okay?"

Ace had rushed forward and was holding her up by the arms, and it wasn't until she did so that Mel realised she was close to collapsing. She let Ace help her to the nearby shelter area, where they sat down and Ace started quizzing her about her disappearance.

"It's ... complicated," Mel attempted. Ace raised an eyebrow at her. "I can't tell you. I'm not sure I fully understand it myself. Was I only away for a few seconds?"

"Yeah, more or less. Did you go somewhere?"

"Sort of. Look, Ace, I honestly can't tell you. Web of time, and all that."

Ace seemed a bit hurt, but eventually gave in and nodded. "Okay. You don't have to tell me. I suppose I'll find out eventually, will I?"

"Something like that," Mel replied with a grateful smile. "Can we just get something to eat, and sit and chat for a bit?"

Ace nodded. "Sure." She spotted someone hovering nearby, and called to them. "Makris! Would you mind running to the Ram's Head and getting something for my friend to eat and drink? Glitz, go help him carry, would you?"

"You're alright, then, Mel?" Glitz asked, seeming concerned and relieved.

"I will be once I have some food," she told him, smiling. He patted her on the shoulder, and headed off towards the inn with Makris, who began talking to him rather urgently as soon as they were out of earshot.

They returned within twenty minutes, interrupting Ace's explanation of the building she was working on. Glitz put down a tray holding a few plates of something that vaguely resembled sandwiches, and Makris handed round a few tumblers of water. He then mumbled his excuses and left. Glitz sat on the other side of Mel and munched away at his sandwich with an odd air of disquiet. Ace gave him a few strange looks as she ate, but said nothing.

Mel felt her strength returning shortly afterwards, and as soon as she mentioned this, Glitz hopped up from the bench.

"Well, we'd better be going, then, hadn't we?"

"Had we?"

He gave Mel a significant look, although she had absolutely no idea what was supposed to be significant about it.

"Do you have to go?" Ace said, dismayed. "You only just got here."

"Yeah, sorry, but we've got other business and stuff to be dealing with," Glitz said briskly. "Can't hang around chatting all day."

From the strange attitude and the significant look, Mel surmised that Glitz had good reason to tear her away from Ace so soon, so she nodded and stood up.

"I guess I'll have to go," she said to Ace. "Business calls." She gave her a small smile. "I'll see you again, though."

Ace looked as though she might voice her protests, but she caught sight of Kris checking his watch, and sighed resignedly.

"Yeah, come visit again soon," she urged, giving Mel a tight hug.

Suddenly remembering what Ace had said in her bedroom in the housing complex, Mel leaned in and kissed her soundly, one last time. Ace looked surprised when she pulled away, but a smile crept onto her face, and she cleared her throat before speaking.

"See you, Doughnut."

"Bye, Ace."

Kris gave them a lift back to the _Centennial Skylark_, during which Mel intended to sit quietly and be morose. Instead, she had Glitz trying to ask her questions.

"I didn't know you and Ace had a thing," he said, his eyebrows doing something she couldn't even describe. "Didn't know you were off the planet, either."

"What?"

"Y'know. Didn't know your bread was buttered that side." Mel raised an eyebrow at him, and he chuckled. "Listen, I've got important stuff to tell you, but it's gotta wait till we're back at the ship."

"Well, we're almost there. Can you start to tell me?"

"See that guy who helped me get food? He's not from here. I mean, he's from Camarina, but not from _now_."

Mel turned sharply towards him. "He was from the future?" she asked, in a whisper.

Glitz nodded. "Yeah. That's where you went, isn't it?" Mel nodded, and he continued in a low voice. "So, this guy, he came here with a bunch of his friends, and he says he knew you in the future, and they need to stow away on our ship for a bit. Which, y'know, I'm not nuts about, since there's not gonna be any space once they're all in there, and the cooling systems are about to pack in as it is, but we can drop them off somewhere soon."

Once Kris had dropped them off at the edge of the docking port, Mel didn't wait for Glitz to continue. She unlocked the door to the ship and hurried inside, heart in her mouth.

The Camarinian refugees clustered in the cargo bay looked up as she entered, but apart from Galen and Makris, Mel couldn't see any familiar faces. Her heart sank, and she sagged in disappointment. Not knowing what to do or say next, she walked blankly through the ship to the cockpit.

"Hey, Doughnut."

Mel looked up, and beamed. Ace laughed and jumped up from the pilot's seat to grab Mel and swing her round. There wasn't quite enough room in the cockpit to do this, and they bounced off the bulkhead and crashed into the console, giggling, making Glitz retreat a few feet down the corridor for safety.

Pulling her to her feet, Mel kissed her delightedly. They were eventually interrupted by Glitz clearing his throat pointedly, and nodding to his watch, smirking all the while.

"Yeah, we'd better get going," Mel agreed, blushing, as she dropped into the pilot's seat.

As Mel ran the engine checks, Ace sat in the co-pilot's seat and said something to Glitz along the lines of making sure her friends were all safe and comfortable. He rolled his eyes a little, but went to do as she asked, muttering about "bossy women" as he went.

"How did you all get back here?" Mel asked, pressing buttons.

"I just decided I was sick of it. DELPHI, the bunker, all that. So I found some supplies, made up some explosives, took out her A.I. processor. Then I just transported everyone back here, one by one, into the cellar of the Ram's Head, and sent Makris out to find Glitz and fill him in, while we snuck through town to the ship. Simple." Ace grinned happily.

"Good plan."

"Well, DELPHI said our time on the planet was almost at an end, so I thought I'd prove her right." She chuckled, and put her feet up on the glove compartment.

Mel grinned back at her, and fired up the engines.


End file.
